Genetic blueprint of inner ear cell development created

Scientists have used a sensitive new technology to create the first high-resolution gene expression map of the newborn mouse inner ear.

The findings provide new insight into how epithelial cells in the inner ear develop and differentiate into specialized cells that serve critical functions for hearing and maintaining balance.

Understanding how these important cells form may provide a foundation for the potential development of cell-based therapies for treating hearing loss and balance disorders.

The research was conducted by scientists at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), part of the US National Institutes of Health.

In a companion study led by NIDCD-supported scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and scientists at the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, researchers used a similar technique to identify a family of proteins critical for the development of inner ear cells.

To gain a better understanding of inner ear cell development, Matthew Kelley, chief of the Section on Developmental Neuroscience at the NIDCD, and his research team used single-cell RNA-seq, a new technology that can extract comprehensive gene activity data from just one cell.

Kelley's team analysed 301 cells - some hair cells and some supporting cells - taken from the cochlea and utricle of newborn mice.

The data also allowed the scientists to identify distinct developmental patterns of gene activity. Cells in the vestibular part of the inner ear develop at somewhat different rates, so each cell was at a slightly different point in its maturity when the researchers examined it.